About 45 people attended a Caring For Trees class at Preston Park in Butler Township on Saturday. The session was held to educate people primarily on how to properly prune trees.

BUTLER TWP — Service forester Dave Cole advised people to prune trees with purpose at Saturday’s Caring For Trees class at Preston Park.

“You have to know what you’re doing it for,” said Cole, a service forester for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

About 45 people attended the session, which was held to educate people primarily on how to properly prune trees.

Cole also said that trees should be pruned to keep the natural shape of the tree, and that the best time to prune trees is during the winter time, when trees are dormant.

People should avoid pruning during spring, he said, when leaves are emerging, and also during autumn, when leaves are dropping.

Scott Sjolander, an urban forester of Penn State Extension, also spoke at the session. He spoke about the proper way to prune trees being “thinning cuts,” which are lateral cuts, as opposed to “heading cuts,” which are vertical cuts, made from the top down.

“We’d like to make thin cuts where the tree is able to close the wound more efficiently and carry on with its purposes,” he said.

Heading cuts, Sjolander said, stunt trees and cause decay.

He also spoke on the right kind of cuts to make.

“We try to make as few large cuts in the first place because any time we have a large cut we have a large wound,” he said.

Cole offered a crucial safety tip for would-be pruners.

“Don’t climb,” he said. “That’s for professionals with training and equipment, which is very specialized.”

While some pruning tools are long and can reach high branches, Cole said it is unwise to climb at all to prune any branches that are out of reach on the ground.

“You just don’t get to them,” he said. “It’s not worth the risk.”